Background: Modern elite football places extremely high demands on the athlete's body, so it is of practical interest to study the effect of various dietary supplements on load tolerance and postexercise recovery. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on the effects of caffeine on key measures of load tolerance in football such as delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), rate of perceived exertion (RPE) and heart rate (HR) at different time points after the exercise.
Methods: 54 young players aged 15-17 years from a leading Russian football academy took part in a randomised trial using the balanced placebo design.